


Snapshots of Sturdy Roots Entwined

by Macdicilla



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: But brothers help each other through it, Gen, Non-canon-compliant Holmes Parents, Not such a great home life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3432242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macdicilla/pseuds/Macdicilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They may toss barbs at each other now, but there was a time when they were each other's life raft in turbulent waters.</p><p>A series of vignettes about Mycroft and Sherlock's childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots of Sturdy Roots Entwined

It was getting slowly darker, and the boys were still outside, which was starting to worry the older of the two. He glanced back to the house. No, it would still be some time until the row ended and they could come back in.

For the time being, he had to entertain his younger brother, a curly-headed ball of mischief no taller than his waist. They had just run out of games to play. As I should have foreseen, Mycroft thought.

At hide and seek neither stood a chance against the other, even though the woods behind the house were dense. Blind man’s bluff was too decidedly simple. Tag, Mycroft insisted, would be unfair to play against so short-legged a person, but in truth he suspected his energetic brother’s sprint would much too fast for him. A half-dozen other games had been tried and then dismissed as soon as the novelty wore off, which was very quickly with Sherlock.

But Mycroft was also quick, and soon had an idea.

“I think,” he started, with all the authority an eleven-year-old could muster. “I think we ought to have a conversation.”

That had the younger brother’s full, wide-eyed attention. A conversation was serious business. It was serious enough for adults to send you out of the house so that you would not overhear it, no matter how much you wanted to know what was going on.

“Yes, let’s.” Sherlock said

They sat on a lichen-spotted piece of broken tree.

“What was that business at nursery school today? You don’t need to wail for me all day. I’m coming back, you know.”

It was not the kind of conversation Sherlock had anticipated. He was not being given some arcane grown-up knowledge, but a reprimand, and one which he felt to be utterly undeserved.

“I don’t want to go theh anymow. So I did what they do when they want to go home.” He said as firmly as he could in his small voice. The inability to pronounce the letter r also robbed him of gravitas, which was why he hated his own voice. “I have nothing to do in that place.”

“I saw about thirty toys in that room when Mummy and I dropped you off.”

The younger brother gave him the Look from under a pair of bold, dark eyebrows. What did he care about toys? How could he possibly care about toys? And his number was off too, Mycroft realized. He pulled up the image before his mind’s eye and counted again. Right. Twenty-two. No, there must be some other problem.

“It’s the children, isn’t it?” he asked

“Yes. They don’t have fun. They yell and pee themselves and won’t play my games”

Mycroft stopped for a moment.

“Which games, may I ask?”

“Follow-my-tracks, and find-the-thing-I-hid. They got so mad because they didn’t know what thing I hid, even though it was obvious after they checked the bags, and then they said I was stealing, and then the lady said to give back the thing I stole, but I couldn’t, because I hadn’t stolen anything, and then she made me go to the hiding spot and get the thing, when she could have done it if she had been paying any attention to details.”

“Well, sometimes people don’t want to play your games.”

“I know that,” said the small boy, offended. “I think they actually can’t.”

The older brother smirked.

“You’ve figured it out, then”

“I always do, Mycoff.”

Mycroft made a serious face.

“I keep telling you, that’s not my name.”

“Yes, it is.”

“But you’re saying it wrong.” taunted the older brother. “You can’t say it right; I can’t listen to you seriously”

“But I can!” protested he.

“Then say ‘rrr.’” he challenged.

“You awful person.”

“Arrr,” repeated Mycroft. Then he covered an eye, held his index finger curved and stood on one leg, hoping to make his brother smile. “Look, I’m a pirate.”

“That costume fools no one.” said Sherlock with a straight face.

His brother sighed. It was no use pretending. He took another look back at the house. No, they could not go back in yet. “Look, just make the sound, alright?”

“I don’t need to make those silly sounds to be one.” he snapped with his chest puffed up, and it was almost too comical for Mycroft to suppress a chuckle.

“You can’t be a pirate.”

“Can and will.”

“No, but you don’t want to be a pirate, actually. They steal, murder, and torture. You could be a privateer.” Suggested Mycroft.

“Someone who catches them.”

“Right.” Grinned Mycroft. “Well, you’re just saying that because it has less rs.”

“Lies!”

“Prrrivateerrr.”

“I’m not about to say it.”

“Rrrapidly, rrrapidly rrroll the frrreight carrrs charrrged with sugarrr-bearrring on the rrrailrrroad.” Taunted Mycroft.

Sherlock knit his brows together and glared at him.

“Idiot.” He spat.

Mycroft stopped.

“You’ve been eavesdropping on them, haven’t you?.”

Then, with chilling accuracy, Sherlock said in Father’s exact voice:

“It doesn’t matter what words I use, Annette. It’s not going to change anything, and you certainly won’t. Leave me alone!”

Smiling at Mycroft’s surprised face, Sherlock felt triumphant. “I can get all the rs when I pretend to be Father.”

But Mycroft’s mind was elsewhere.

“Oh, God. What else did you overhear?”

In a perfect rendition of Mother’s voice:

“No, YOU don’t understand. You can’t keep doing this. Put it away. Put the damned thing away right now, Aloysius, or so help me! One of these days—oh, please, God, forbid it—I’m going to find you dead on the floor, poisoned and…and…oh-oh-oh. I-I’m going to be sorry I didn’t put you there!”

Sherlock cleared his throat. He had delivered it just right, hadn’t he? With all those emotions and everything, and all the rs had worked too. Why was Mycroft’s face like that? He didn’t like him using that voice. Would it be better to use Mycroft’s voice to do the rs? No, that wasn’t it. Mycroft didn’t like him to hear the yelling. But he needed to hear the yelling to figure out what it was about. He needed to know.

“You don’t need to know what it’s about.” said Mycroft, reading his face “Listen, Sherlock, you need to stop eavesdropping on them.”

Mycroft’s face and voice were both very grave. He took another look at the house, sighed, and took a look at the sky, which was now a rich dark blue. The stars would come out soon, but the evening chill had already come, and Mycroft thought he could see his breath. The thought of the fireplace inside made him rub his sleeves, but he realized now that they had probably forgotten to turn it on. It should have been a peaceful night, he thought. The crickets were performing a loud cacophonous sonata, and the little clear stream behind the house was making its soothing little water noises. Mycroft noticed his younger brother was looking up at him strangely.

“But you know, don’t you?” Asked the young boy.

A pause, and then a guilty yes.

“How?”

“Figured it out. No one told me. You’ll have to do the same.”

“When did you figure it out?”

“The year before you were born. I was six.”

“I’ll figure it out by the time I’m five.”

Mycroft sighed again, exasperated.

“This isn’t a bloody game!”

There was a silence.

“Sorry.” He added, seeing the loudness of his exclamation had apparently startled his brother.

No response.

“Sherlock, are you there? Would you like to play follow-the-tracks?”

The younger boy shook his head.

“Of course not.” Said Mycroft. “Thought so. The soil’s too wet. Footprints will be too easy.”

“No, that’s not it.” Said Sherlock quietly. “I think we can go back in now. I think they’re done.”

A woman’s silhouette was visible in the window. She was standing sideways with an air of weariness, but recovering herself in a few moments, she turned forward, parted the curtain, pushed up the window, and let out a birdcall.

That was the sign. The boys got up, walked around to the front of the house, and entered. In the sitting room, there was every sign of normalcy. Mother in her chair, making something out of yellow yarn, trying to look less weary. Father lain across the couch, back towards them, sleeping fitfully. The boys noticed mother’s face was washed, (some hairs near her forehead were damp) and she didn’t let them see her face, so they (correctly) concluded the eyes must be puffy.

Mycroft, in his room, buried his face in his pillow and tried not to think about anything.

Meanwhile, Sherlock lay face up in his own bed, staring at his ceiling, trying to figure it all out, as usual.

He was not able to figure it out by the time he was five, not even by the time he was seven. This was, of course, through no fault of his own, but due to the unfortunate departure of one of the pieces of the puzzle.

Father had “had to go away,” whatever that infuriating vagueness meant.


End file.
